DarleneCrossover: 4What you haven't told
by Hardwing
Summary: Darlene discovers that there is a lot which hadn't her mother told her.... and the manhattan clan might just be the top.
1. Chapter1

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I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background and Storyseeker for correcting my fics and helping me with great ideas and for the characters of his ficverse.

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4. What you haven't told

"You'll be making a business trip to New York?" Jarred asked his grandmother.

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***2.A German Story***

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"I'm watching TV," Demona explained quickly out of the telephone. _"I'm sorry, how are you?"_

~ You never watch TV, mother ~ Darlene thought, but kept silent.

"Well, it is all well here... "Darlene started reporting her mother."We miss you." 

***

~ What is going on? ~ Darlene asked herself about her mother's strange behavior.

***

"Kids," Darlene addressed her children, looking at them. "Pack up; we're going to visit your grandmother."

****

***

We see Darlene and her family at the JFK-Airport, starring speechlessly on the monitor showing Demona killing humans.

***

Darlene glides to the Eyrie-tower and sees a gargoyle, hidden by lightening, falling down the highest tower of Castle Wyvern.

***

We see Demona falling in the enlarging hole in the courtyard of Castle Wyvern

***

We see Darlene's face when she learns that Lucifia, whom her mother has just killed, was indeed her half-sister.

***

"Wow, our sister was definitely no nun in the last 1000 years." Thersities said with a wicked smile to Asrial.

"No, she wasn't." Darlene agreed with them, going to her mother. 

***

"I thought you were in Berlin." Demona told her calmly, but with a slight accusation in her voice.

"And I thought you would have told me at least half of your life." Darlene replied, crossing her arms. "Turns out we were both wrong."

***

By searching her mother's Amnesia-spell Darlene discovered another one.

"L-Kor spell." she read and what she saw didn't make her happy.

***

Darlene read what there said about the amnesia spell and became even angrier.

"Mother!" she snarled angrily, her eyes fading to red.

"The spell doesn't just affect humans, but gargoyles too." Goliath's voice said behind her noticed.

***

Demona speaks the spell:

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"God of memory, hear my prayer. I plead to make all this night undone in the minds and scrolls of all creatures, which should never have happened. Hear my plea." 

***

"Yes, all or nothing," Demona confessed to Angela about the amnesia-spell. "There is no other way. But I will visit the clan in the next few nights and introduce you to Darlene and the children and I will let you know that Connor is your half brother."

"The next few nights?!" Darlene asked angrily.

Demona sighed. "The next night," she promised.

***

Demona collapses in Darlene's arms and her daughter brings her to her bed where she stays with her until the sun rises.

***3.A Secret Revealed***

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03.08.98; 20:12; Demona's Mansion:

Demona, still in her human form, stretched the muscles of her body since she knew that this somehow eased the pain she felt through her daily transformation... a bit.

She still felt groggy, but not as much as she had when she had woken up, noticing that she had slept the half of the day and had transformed without her noticing it. The next thing the immortal had noticed had been her daughter above her and Shade sitting on the other side of the bed, both in their stone forms. 

That was when the memories of last night had returned like a nightmare, just that she knew that this nightmare had been real. Stumbling, she had stood up from her bed and called her firm, telling them that she wouldn't be coming in this day before lying on the bed again, but this time curled up into a ball like she had done often as a hatchling.

She hadn't slept, hadn't been able to sleep and not wanting it since she feared to dream of... her.

So she had stood up again, barely an hour before nightfall and had figured out what to do. At first, she changed the bed linen since they were bloody, then she had taken maybe the longest shower of her life and washed all the dirt, dead skin and blood from her body until she was clean like a fresh hatchling out of the egg.

~ Blood ~ Demona thought while she did so ~ my blood and hers... ~

After this she had looked around the house, first after her grandchildren, then after the swords and had finally destroyed the signs of battle as good as possible. There were still many scratches, but she could blame Shade. Demona didn't think that her beast would mind that.

She had then called Xanatos and ordered him to ask Angela to come to her mansion, as soon as possible. And finally she called a firm, which would transport her and her family's things from her mansion in Germany to Destine Manor, as fast as possible.

Now she waited for the sun to come and the transformation to begin, looking on her daughter.

~ How can I start to explain...? ~ Demona thought ~ what can I say... ~

But already the last beams of the sun went away and the immortal felt her bones changing so fast along with her flesh that she nearly believed they were breaking, as she screamed out her pain which made a chorus with her daughter's and her beast's scream to welcome the night.

Darlene first looked a bit perplexed, as she stared around the room which she recognized as her old home, but. hadn't the sun caught her in her mother's mansion in Germany?

Then she saw her mother looking on her with a calm face.

"Mother. What?" Darlene began.

Demona shook her head, looking disapproving on her daughter. 

"I told you that flying over the ocean and the time grades without the right preparation isn't something for you and the children." she told her in a tone that Darlene knew of when she had been young and her mother had lectured her in her calm voice. "But you wanted to surprise me, so don't complain. at least the plane didn't crash."

Darlene still felt perplexed, but this had to be it, hadn't it? She and the children had ordered a flight to New York to surprise her mother.

Suddenly, she saw a large lizard dog with a scarred face coming out, strolling from behind the bed, looking and smelling around rather confused.

~ A gargoyle beast ~ Darlene thought confused ~ but how? ~

"Mother, what is this?" Darlene asked her mother, who stroked the beasts scarred back, while Shade seemed to be as interested in Darlene as she was in her.

"Shade..." Demona began, saying it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, ". is my gargbeast, I told you of her yesterday, remember?"

Again, Darlene tried to bring an order to her memories... Yes, her mother had. 

Darlene nodded and Demona gave her one of her rare smiles. 

"I...." she began, but was stopped when her grandchildren entered the room.

"Whoa!" Jarred, who had entered first, said. "What is that?"

"Shade," Darlene replied before her mother could say anything. "Mother introduced us to her yesterday after we arrived here, remember?"

Jarred first looked perplexed on his mother, but then he nodded, yes such it had been. Then he knelt down, smiling on the large beast that came nearer, sniffing on him.

"Cool! I always wanted a dog!" he exclaimed.

Shade replied this with a snort, seemingly not liking to be called a _dog_. And after she had given Jarred a lick on his face, to which he replied with a short giggle, she went to further smell on Lana with Gem in her arms.

"Great, now the freak show is complete." Lana noticed and wanted to say more until her mother's eyes stopped her... She definitely didn't like the word 'freak'.

Much to Darlene's wonder, her mother seemed not to care.

"Well, I guess you are hungry." Demona told her family. "I have prepared some snacks." 

Jarred and Lana threw some fearful looks on her mother, who simply shrugged her shoulders.

"Okay mother." Darlene replied, surrendering to her fate.

  
**03.08.98; 20:56; Demona's Mansion, Dinner room:**

Demona looked at how her family ate the snacks, noticing that Jarred gave a happy Shade more than half of what he had on his plate. This was until her keen ears heard the sound that she had waited for much too long.

"Whuff!" Shade barked when she heard a knocking on the French door in the next room and went to investigate.

"What...." Darlene began, but Demona stood up and made a calming gesture. 

"It is okay Darlene," she explained, studying her daughter with an expression that Darlene couldn't really identify. "I have been waiting for someone, who I have to introduce you to."

Darlene just looked on her mother totally perplexed, along with Lana and Jarred, while they went into the other room. Not knowing what else to do, Darlene pricked up her ears, listening for whoever was in the other room, but all she finally heard was her mother telling the stranger that she had a surprise for him... her?

Demona came back in the room together with Shade, leading the stranger in.

The stranger turned out to be a female gargoyle, a bit older than Lana, with long brown hair and lavender skin and was a bit smaller than Demona with whom she had a somehow too large a resemblance.

"Darlene," Demona began. "This is Angela. your half sister."

Darlene's mouth hanged open, like Angela's, but Demona ignored this.

"Angela, this is Darlene, your half sister," she pointed to the gargoyle who was nearly as old as she, "and her children Lana, Jarred and Gem."

If someone had thrown a knife, it would have been caught in the air by the thickness of the silence, even Gem looked silently around, sensing that something was going on.

Demona's daughters first looked on each other unbelieving, then back on their mother and finally back on each other.

"Mother," Darlene finally began, speaking her half-sister out of the heart. "How... what... why..."

Demona led a totally shocked Angela with a claw on her shoulder, to her chair.

"Well I think I owe you an explanation..." Demona began just to be interrupted by Darlene.

"**You think?**" Darlene screamed on her mother unbelieving by this understatement.

  
"Okay, I do." Demona admitted in a cool manner, which made Darlene's claw tingle.

~ I will strangle her ~ Darlene thought ~ until she is dead... again and again ~

But she controlled herself, because she didn't want to make this scene in front of her children, and she didn't want to make a bad first expression to her new... half sister.

~ I'll kill her ~ Darlene thought despite this, looking on her mother ~ I swear one night... ~

"So, you are my half sister?" Angela asked looking back and forth from her mother to Darlene and back. 

Darlene nodded. 

"But I don't remember mother having another hatchling when I left." Darlene said.

"When you left?" Angela replied perplexed. 

"Why don't you let me explain it?" Demona suggested. 

"Please!" Angela and Darlene demanded in chorus.

****

03.08.98; 22:13; Demona's Mansion, Dinner room:

Demona had just ended her story, beginning with Darlene's life and ending it with her last visit at Wyvern... Well, the last in the official chronology anyway.

"Wow!" Jarred, who found the power to first speak, said to Angela. "So you're my aunt!"

Angela looked to the hatchling... her nephew and nodded, still not believing it herself while Darlene just looked on her mother.

"And why haven't you told me that the clan you had 'struggled' with, was indeed your clan?" she asked, not knowing if she should be angry on her mother or happy that she had gained a sister. "Why not once in **6 **months?"

Demona shrugged her shoulders.

"I didn't get the right moment." she lied and Darlene felt how the tickling in her claws returned. "Besides, I wanted to wait until they made the first step and Darlene... They aren't my clan, remember this."

This was something that Angela couldn't accept.

  
"Mother, they..." she began, but corrected herself quickly, "**we** are."

Demona was going to deny this, but Darlene interrupted.

"In any case, we are family." she explained and added looking to her mother, "and I would like to get to know this family... finally."

Angela shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know what I should say." she explained. "We can leave at once if you want."

Darlene was going to agree to this, when Demona intervened.

"I think Angela should glide to the clan first and warn them." she said in a tone not tolerating contradiction. "We can both go to the roof with her, Darlene."

Darlene was at first confused about this, but when she looked into her mother's eyes, she realized that her mother was going to reveal something more.

"Yes, I think this is best, Ang..." she replied and stood up, giving Gem to Lana. ".. Sister?" 

Angela first looked to Darlene then to her mother and nodded.

"Okay," Angela replied, standing up too. "Sure, why not?"

The female trio had just passed through the door when Lana took the hint, crossing her arms and looking remarkable like her mother through this.

"I have to go right when there is something you want to speak of, without us?" she asked. 

Darlene looked on her daughter, wanting to say not now, but her mother intervened first.

"Yes." she replied simply and went up to the stairs.

Darlene sighed.

~ A little bit of diplomacy, please mother ~ she thought.

"I will return soon." Darlene said and followed her mother together with Angela. 

Jarred looked up to his sister, as he stroked a purring Shade's back. "Why don't they tell us?" he complained. "We can keep a secret." 

Lana looked to her brother. 

"YOU could never keep a secret, pal!" Lana pointed out.

"Well this time I could!" Jarred defended himself.

Meanwhile, Demona and her daughter's had reached the roof.

"Okay, mom." Darlene said to her mother while she closed the door. "Which secret is it? Do we have another sibling?!"

Demona, who had turned her back on them, turned around and looked sternly into Angela and Darlene's eyes.

"Yes."

Darlene and Angela just stared at her.

"**What?**" Angela screamed. "Whom?" 

Demona crossed her arms. 

"You know him Angela; he has white hair, grey-brown skin, my forehead..." Demona explained calmly.

"Connor?" Angela said unbelieving. "Connor is your son?"

Demona nodded, realizing too late that this might be a mistake.

"Who is Connor?" Darlene asked, looking to her half sister. "One of your clan?"

It was Demona who answered. 

"He was part of my clan at Moray." she explained to her. "Now he is part of the Manhattan clan."

"You never told me I had any other siblings, except for the egg you had in Wyvern!" Darlene accused her mother.

"And back in the Labyrinth, you never told me that I had any siblings!" Angela added. "Neither did you tell me that you had any other mates in Moray."

Demona sighed.

"I didn't have any 'mates' at Moray." she explained. "I just followed the old rules of the clan." 

"**MOTHER!**" Darlene claimed out "Tell me you didn't..."

Demona simply shook her shoulders. "I told you I did." she explained.

"You have done what?" Angela asked perplexed, which reminded Darlene that she had been raised by humans.

"She mated with the one who had been able to catch her during breeder's moon." Darlene said still unbelieving. "Mother told me once that back in the old ages, even before she lived, the clans did it so."

Angela stared at her mother.

"And there is another thing." Demona began and her daughter's prepared for another shock. "He doesn't know that he is my... my biological son, so please don't let him know, neither Lana nor Jarred for this matter."

Again, Angela and Darlene stared at her mother.

"And why shouldn't we?" Darlene asked.

"Because I asked you to." Demona told them with a barely hidden hardness in her voice.

Darlene was just about to retort when Angela spoke out.

"A younger brother." Angela noticed unbelieving.

"Well, chronologically he is your older brother." Demona noted. "You once told me you hatched barely around 1078?"

  
Angela nodded and then realized what her mother was going to say.

"You mean..." Angela began "Oh..."

She looked on her chronological youngest and biologically oldest sibling.

~ I've certainly got hell of a family tree here ~ Angela thought

"Okay, mother." Angela told them totally shocked. "But I better go now... or is there another thing?"

Demona shook her head and so released her daughter, who doubted that she could bear another surprise this night.

Darlene looked to her new sister and nodded.

"I will come at once." she promised, embracing her sister tightly "We all will." 

Angela nodded and leaped from the roof in the air, trying to let the air under the wings clear her thoughts.

~ Three siblings! ~

Meanwhile, Darlene stared on her mother, who watched after Angela.

"Well, I think we should go downstairs." Demona said and was moving to the door only to be stopped by Darlene's strong arm on her shoulder.

"Why mother?" she asked simply. "Why have you never told me of them?"

"I told you my reasons." Demona replied coolly, not fleeing from the look in her daughter's eyes. 

"For that, you haven't told me of how you brought back your clan, yes, even when it is a damned weak one, mother." Darlene snarled and studied her mother intensively, who hadn't even blinked. "But why haven't you told me of Connor, in all these years?"

Demona shook her head.

"I told you that my clan in Moray had hatchlings." she explained to her daughter. "And I told you that I was their rookery mother, that is it, there wasn't more."

~ She is insane! ~ Darlene thought for a moment. 

"There wasn't more?" Darlene asked her furiously "He is your son and there isn't more?" 

Demona shook her head. 

"Darlene, it is like I explained to you back then." she tried. "They were all my children, those who hatched in Moray... as even the youngest generation of Wyvern were."

Darlene wasn't going to accept this.

"Why do you refuse to acknowledge him like you did with me or Angela?" Darlene demanded to know.

Demona's claws became fists, as she didn't like to be questioned by her daughter in this way.

  
"I 'acknowledged' you because you were the only child I had." she explained to her daughter. "I acknowledged Angela for the same reason." she lied. "But with Connor, there was never a reason to do so. He is a child of the clan and I ask you to accept this." 

Darlene shook her head. "And if I do not?" she asked. "If I tell him the truth?"

Demona's eyes had now a glimmer of red.

"You mean just because you are angry with me, you would destroy the life he has?" she replied.

"He has a right to know the truth." Darlene answered "He... " 

"The truth?" Demona asked. "The truth is that he is and always has been a child of the clan, the truth is I am and will always be his rookery mother, this is the truth." 

Demona spit out the last words angrily and studied her chronological youngest daughter.

"If he wants to know more and ask me about this, I will not lie to him," she said, "but for now, this is no topic."

Demona's tone, a half-snarl, like her near red eyes and her tensed muscles made absolutely clear that the topic was over for her and so she went to the door.

Unfortunately, her mother's heritage of anger and stubbornness overthrew Darlene's survival instincts and she jumped in Demona's way, her eyes blood red and her lips curled into a snarl, baring her fangs.

"**IT IS A TOPIC!**" Darlene snarled furiously. "You lied to me, mother. about something which is part of my life, you lied to me not just these six months, but my whole life!"

Demona's response was a snarl, with her eyes now turning completely red. An observer would by now recognize the similarities between mother and daughter more than ever.

"There speaks the right one, Darlene?" Demona snarled on her daughter. "Not only did you try to hide your little affair with this human by faking your death, you would have denied your own children their true heritage for their whole lives, or am I wrong _daughter_?"

She spit out the last word as if it was a curse, but Darlene didn't show if she had been hit.

"I admit this was wrong mother," she replied, "but neither do you have a right to hide such things from me nor will I tolerate as such."

Demona's anger was calmed a bit by confusion.

~ Did she say she wouldn't tolerate it? ~ Demona thought ~ who does she think she is?! ~

"I won't ask you why you really have kept me and the children away from the clan for so long, even when I know that there is more." Darlene began, studying her mother with eyes now clear again. "But tell me, are there any more siblings of mine out there wandering through the world just waiting to meet me?"

Demona had managed to calm her blood down so that her mind didn't check her daughter's body for the best area of an attack anymore, even though it had been very hard. After a longer silence, she gathered her strength to let her answer be more than a snarl.

"No," Demona told her daughter, "there aren't."

Darlene held her view.

"And has there ever been anymore?" she asked her mother. "More siblings that have been dead since centuries... a whole clan perhaps?"

Demona was a bit shocked by this question, but kept cool.

~ Is the spell dissolving itself? ~ she asked herself, but rejected it ~ no she is just suspicious and angry, this is all. ~

"This talk is over." Demona noted icily and went around her daughter, to the door.

She half-expected an attack of her daughter, but it didn't come and so she placed her claw on the door handle.

"I can't force you to tell me the whole story of your life mother, I know this," Darlene told her mother in the same voice that Demona had ended the discussion. "But if because of your secrets, my children or my siblings or anyone that I care for, get hurt then I swear I will..." 

"You made your point, Darlene." Demona interrupted her not turning around, so that it seemed to a distant observer as if both spoke to the night. "I warn you not to let it become a threat... I don't like threats."

With this, the immortal walked through the door, leaving her daughter alone, looking into the night. 


	2. Chapter2

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03.08.98; 22:05; Somewhere by the Eyrie Tower:

The group that consisted of two grown-up gargresses, a beautiful teenage gargress, two hatchlings and an excited gargbeast approached the highest tower of the world. 

Demona led the group with Shade in her arms, her two oldest grandchildren were in the middle and Darlene, who was holding Gem, formed the end. Jarred nearly trembled, as the coldness between his mother and his grandmother was somewhere below absolute zero, something he didn't know why, but didn't like.

When his grandmother had come down and told them to get their tails to the roof, he had felt and heard it from the iciness in her voice that something was wrong, but he and Lana hadn't asked since they knew better than to bait her grandmother further, hoping that they would hear from their mother about what had happened.

Their hopes had been proved wrong though since their mother, waiting on the roof, hadn't been in a much better mood than their grandmother. Darlene, after taking Gem, had just told them that they were going now and even Lana, who had no desire to visit the clan that Darlene had told them, was their family, and also kept silent.

Yet, Lana didn't feel this as they neared the large building and her mother finally noticed something.

"There!" Darlene said, looking to the battlements of Wyvern where some figures were standing. 

It turned out that one of the figures was indeed Angela, standing aside a large lavender gargoyle which Darlene recognized as Goliath, through the fact that he had the same coloring as her sister and the description her mother had given her so many times when she had been young. Beside Goliath stood a gargoyle around Lana's age with red skin, a beak and white hair, looking in interest on them while they landed.

"Hello." Goliath greeted them as they landed. He looked at Demona, who refused him a look. "I am Goliath and greet you in the name of my clan."

Darlene nodded thankfully with a smile.

"And I greet you in the name of my family." she replied. "These are my children Lana, Jarred and this," she cuddled Gem a bit, who gulped by this and looked on the strange gargoyles, especially the one with the large beak, "is Gem."

Jarred waved his claw as a greeting while Lana just stared at Brooklyn. She had heard from her grandmother that not all gargoyles looked so much like humans like they did; something which had made Lana shiver, but seeing the gargoyle with a beak was still a slight shock.

Unfortunately, Brooklyn only saw the most beautiful gargoyle that he had ever seen in front of him, so beautiful that he even forgot his mistrust against Demona and mistook her look as a sign that Lana liked what she saw and so he extended his claw with a broad smile on his beak.

"Hello, I am Brooklyn, the second in command of this clan." Brooklyn told them, even though he only had eyes just for Lana. "Nice to meet you."

Lana just stared at the claw in front of her, until Darlene hissed her name and brought her back to life.

"Yes..." she began, carefully touching his claw and shaking it even more carefully, "...nice..."

Darlene made a mental note to go over the poor diplomatic skills of her eldest daughter. She then continued speaking with their guests.

"Aside from the fact that you're alive again," Darlene looked shortly to Demona, who returned this view icily, "Mother has told me a lot about you, so I'm eager to meet the rest of you."

Goliath looked shortly to his sister. ~ Why should she say any good things about us? ~

"As do they." he replied.

While he did so, Darlene noticed something. There were indeed more gargoyles out here than she had seen in the first place. Two males were watching her from the highest tower and now she noticed two gargbeasts, one with a light green skin, a small beak and unlike Shade, a long tail, while the other seemed the same type as Shade, but with a skin tone of light blue with large parts of grey in it. They were both playing happily in the courtyard.

This was when Darlene noticed the hole in the courtyard. She tried to hide her surprise in order to ask the clan later, but her sister saw her expression.

"That happened yesterday," Angela explained. "It was a structural weakness, which was overseen when Xanatos rebuilt the castle here."

Darlene looked shocked on her sister.

"I hope nobody has been hurt." Darlene asked, but Angela shook her head.

"Luckily, no," Angela said with a slight smile, "but the repairs will take some time. I can show you more of the castle inside."

Darlene smiled, but only half-heartedly as the argument with her mother laid still too hard on her.

"I would like this." she said. 

Looking around, she saw Jarred's eyes glittering with excitement, since he loved to explore old buildings while Lana looked around less enthusiastically, seemingly wanting to be back home more than anything, while Brooklyn continued looking at her as if she was the only person in the world. 

Her mother... Darlene noticed that her mother was indeed with her mind anywhere but there, since her eyes stared simply ahead, surely not even noticing Shade at her feet-claws.

~ Odd for her, ~ she thought and decided to bring her mother back to the present.

"Mother?" Darlene asked her.

She seemingly awoke, looking to Darlene and nodded slightly.

Darlene sighed and looked to Goliath, who offered her with his claw a way into the castle, followed by her family.

Demona followed the others half-heartedly, as she worked hard to control herself, but despite these efforts, the clear air seemed somehow full of thunder clouds turning around the highest tower. She remembered the pain when the lightening had hit her, the fall from the air and hitting the lower battlement with her shoulder, she even still felt the pain when...

Demona shook it off, but one image stayed in her mind, the image of her daughter's lifeless body on the ground, of the feeling she had had... 

~ It is too early, ~ she knew. ~ Why have I come to this place so soon after this? ~

But she had had no other choice since Darlene wouldn't have accepted a 'no' without asking her too many questions. Her eyes wandered to the hole again.

~ If anybody hadn't survived this night, ~ Demona thought, ~ they would have blamed the structural damage... maybe even Xanatos? ~

"Mother?" Angela's voice brought her back and showed her that she had fallen back behind the group, with Shade by her side looking somewhat worriedly on her master and friend.

"Nothing much has happened lately." her chronologically oldest daughter said and for one moment, Demona thought that she would indeed speak of what had truly happened... and somehow, this took a bit of the weight from Demona's shoulders, but then she continued. "I mean okay, the collapse seems rather dramatic, but as I said, nobody was hurt."

Demona looked on her daughter for just a moment too long and finally nodded.

"Luckily." she replied and placed a claw on Angela's shoulder which made her smile "But now we should follow the others."

Angela nodded and while they went further, Demona thought that her daughter had indeed no idea how much luck they had had.

Meanwhile, Darlene and her children, who were led by Goliath, entered the great hall where other gargoyles waited, but since there were too many to get to know at once, Goliath just introduced them to the two gargoyles in front of her. They were a couple with one old male gargoyle with a scar across his left eye, long white hair and a white beard, wearing a sword as a sign that he was still a warrior. The second one was younger than he, with green skin, long fair hair parted by some dump horns and wearing a suit of armor like the first one did.

"Darlene, this is my mentor Hudson," he pointed to the male, "and this is my former teacher, Deborah."

The last one gave them a short nod until she took one look at Gem and stopped, seemingly shocked.

Darlene nodded politely.

"I am..." Darlene began, but was stopped by the one called Hudson.

"No need for introductions, lass," the old warrior explained looking at the hatchling with five fingers on her claws in the gargess's arm shortly. "Angela already told us who you are and your story."

This was when Demona entered the hall, together with Angela, and her eyes met the ones of Deborah. There was a tension between them, which Darlene felt at once and looking beside both warriors, Darlene believed that there was an untold story inside Xanatos's envoy's visit to Berlin, which her mother had hidden so well.... like there were so many untold stories.

"Well, old teacher," Demona began. "There is no need for me to introduce them to you is there?" 

Deborah tensed her muscles and clenched her claws into fists.

"There wouldn't be if you would have introduced me to them, two weeks ago." Deborah noted, suppressing a snarl.

"I don't know what you mean." Demona asked, shrugging her shoulders. "Gem was in the room the whole time. You could have just asked me and I would have told you of them." 

Deborah stared at her former pupil, then on Gem in Darlene's arms, then back on Demona.

~ I knew it! ~ She thought. ~ By the dragon, I knew it! ~

  
"Oh, you didn't see her?" Demona taunted, despite the warning looks of Angela, Goliath and Hudson. "Yes, you are getting old!"

Luckily, before Deborah's anger could rise or before she could even reply to this insult, a voice raised.

"Aunt Demona!" a young female voice exclaimed, echoed by some happy laughter of other voices and when the group looked around they saw a group of six hatchlings, mostly of Moray, entering the hall. They had before been seemingly busy in playing with a large yellow-skinned gargbeast with a long tail, who became instantly unimportant when they discovered who had arrived.

Demona gave them one of her rare smiles and when the first hatchling arrived, one of the hatchlings of Moray who was a female with pale green skin, white hair and mild blue eyes, she took her under the ankles and flew her around, something she had never done before to any of them, but she seemed to like this one very much since she giggled happily.

This ended Demona's good mood since somehow, just in her mind, this hatchling seemed to transform before her eyes. Her hair became black like the darkest night instead of white and her skin changed into dark blue... 

Demona had to force herself to bring her mind back under her control, but managed it finally.

When she had placed the hatchling down on earth again, Demona kneeled down and looked around the group, which included a special hatchling called Connor, giving them all a short smile.

"Hello." she greeted her rookery children. "I'm happy to see you again."

"Where have you been, aunt?" one of them, a male, white-skinned one with long blond hair and a beak, asked.

"I was in Berlin like your elders have surely told you." Demona explained.

"Will you stay now?" Connor asked and his voice was more than a hidden plea for that she would do so. "I mean, stay with us?"

"I will stay..." Demona answered, after looking shortly to Darlene who had just eyes for Connor, "at least for a little while."

This brought Darlene's attention back to her mother.

~ At least for a while? ~ She thought surprised since she had assumed that they would stay forever. ~ You speak for yourself, mother! ~

But Demona didn't notice her daughter's look, or better yet chose to ignore it, and instead looked back to the hatchlings surrounding her.

"An elder said they banned you." a male hatchling with grey skin, short spikes instead of hair that covered his head and a mace on the ending of his tail, said. "Is this true?" 

Demona first looked on him, then on Goliath who took the initiative.

"No, we haven't." he told the hatchling. "She has just chosen to live without the clan, this is all. There is no banishment."

The ex-mates held a second of eye contact and Demona had to suppress a look of surprise for the gentle words of her ex.

"Well, I have heard that you all chose names." Demona noted and lead the hatchlings at the same time away from a terrain she didn't want to speak about, something which Darlene didn't miss. "I would like to know them."

The interest that their rookery mother showed for them, made the hatchlings happy and one by one they told her their names.

"Eve." the one who had greeted Demona first, said and she gave a nod to show that she liked her rookery daughter's choice.

"I've named myself Connor." Connor explained and Demona gave him a nod too.

"My name is Mike." the gray skinned hatchling said.

"Duncan." the white skinned hatchling told her.

Meanwhile, Darlene, along with her children and half-sister looked on this in wonder.

~ Okay, seemingly mother is their rookery mother ~ Darlene thought and looked to Deborah who was eyeing her former pupil angrily, she noticed. ~Apparently we all don't like this, do we? ~

This was when the large yellow gargbeast came nearer to Demona after having greeted Shade and tried to lick her, something she was able to avoid by stroking him.

"His name is Argus." Connor explained smiling, striking the gargbeast himself.

This was when Eve turned her face to the strangers.

"Who are they?" she asked.

Demona threw a short look to Darlene.

"This is my daughter Darlene and her children Lana, Jarred and Gem." she explained.

The hatchlings' eyes turned wide.

"You are her daughter...." Connor asked his older sister, Darlene, "like Angela?"

Darlene gave Angela a short look and then nodded.

"Yes." she admitted, not knowing what else to say.

Meanwhile, Argus had even so discovered the new gargoyles and smelled them, one by one, on Darlene with Gem in her arms, then on Lana and finally on Jarred who smiled until the beast decided to give the hatchling a special greeting and so placed one of his claws on the hatchling's chest, caused him to fall, climbed on Jarred's chest and started to lick his face.

"Hey!" Jarred cried out. "Help!"

This made most of the grown up gargoyles smile, until Goliath decided to end it, but Connor having understood the problems of a hatchling in the same age and having been in the same situation, too often, was faster. 

"Get off him, Argus." he ordered the gargbeast, placing all his weight against his. "Now!"

Whining, the gargbeast followed the order, giving Jarred a final lick and then stepping off from him.

"Arghh," Jarred moaned, trying desperately to wipe the gargbeast's saliva from his face. "I hate this!!!"

Connor smiled, understanding all too well and held a claw to the fallen hatchling to help him up. Jarred took the claw and so stood up.

"Thank you." he said.

"No need." Connor replied grinning, but then he noticed something. "Your claws!?" 

"What is...?" Jarred asked surprised, until he noticed that the other hatchlings had just four talons on his claw.

"Oh yeah." he realized, rubbing his brown hair. "My father was human."

Connor looked at him strangely for a few seconds and then grinned. "Cool!" he said, showing that he had seemingly completely adapted to this time. 

Darlene did not need to be an expert to see that her son had found a friend.

~ What would he say if I told him that Connor is indeed his uncle? ~ Darlene asked herself.

"Well, I might as well show you the castle," Goliath offered Darlene, "If you want?"

"I would be happy to see more of your home." Darlene explained. "Especially since my mother has told me many stories about it."

Demona raised her head, looking to her biological eldest child.

"Why not?" she agreed, even when she doubted that she would see anything new here, especially since she had once helped to reconstruct the castle. 

Goliath went ahead and the visitors followed, Demona was the last, leaving the hatchlings behind to play with Argus, but promising them to see after them later and maybe even to tell them a story. 

Demona gave her old teacher one last meaningful look and then followed the group.

"I can't believe it." Deborah said unbelieving to her mate after the group was out of sight and the hatchlings had run out in the courtyard. "Has she not a bit of respect or any sense of shame?"

Hudson shook his head. 

"I have seen none by her since we awoke." he answered. "But you shouldn't let yourself irritated by her."

"Irritate?!" Deborah asked her mate. "No, it makes me angry because she knows that she comes through with it... and have you seen how the hatchlings have reacted on her?" 

She emphasized with a gesture to the door where the hatchlings had vanished out.

"She might corrupt them!" Deborah said, looking her mate in the eyes. "We should have warned them about her."

"You go too far." Hudson replied, shaking his bearded head. "The hatchlings of Moray aren't like the ones of Wyvern, for they simple adore her for what they see in her."

Deborah shook her head, wanting to say that this was the problem, but then she let it go, reminding herself that he wasn't the leader anymore and that she was complained to the wrong one.

"On any case, it is time for the training hour." Deborah noticed "Will you help me to gather them?"

Hudson nodded smiling.

****

03.08.98; 22:47; one of the floors of Castle Wyvern:

Goliath had already shown his guests the information centre, the room for the hatchlings and his office, which was probably his most hated place in the castle. Finally, he came to a room with large wooden doors, at the centre of the castle.

"And this is the heart of our clan." Goliath explained with pride, opening the massive doors as if they were nothing. "This is the rookery." 

Darlene looked surprised on the seven eggs lying in the centre of the room, never having seen a gargoyle egg before.

Lana meanwhile couldn't banish a feeling of hunger on fried eggs by this view, but she was clever enough not to mention it, she doubted that anyone would find this funny, especially not her grandmother.

"Wow!" Jarred noted and knelt before the bunch of eggs "And out of every one of them will hatch a gargoyle?"

Goliath nodded.

"Out of every one." he confessed. "Dr. Moore has checked them." 

This got Demona's attention, who had knelt beside the eggs, touching one's shell to feel the temperature of it, which seemed optimal... Shortly, she even believed to feel a movement beneath the shell.

"Dr. Moore?" she asked, not believing what she had heard, even Goliath couldn't do this, wouldn't allow to...

"Our doctor." Goliath explained. "Xanatos employed him roughly a year ago for us; he even so checked the eggs by ultrasound to see if they are healthy."

"You let the eggs be touched by a human?" Demona asked him angrily, by standing up and facing him eye to eye, near of snarling. "Have you lost the last of your brains?"

Angela and Darlene winced, while Brooklyn didn't seem to notice it since he just stared on Lana, but for Goliath this didn't come surprising, indeed it was the same that most of the clan elders had said to him when he first came up with the idea. This was the only thing, which helped him to answer as calm as he did.

"Remember the eggs, which never hatched for reasons we didn't know? That from Brooklyn's rookery or the one after?" Goliath asked. "If there is any hope to prevent this for the future, I will take it."

Demona did not take her eyes from her ex-mate's.

"Has at least someone of the clan been present at the check-up?" she asked icily, but they both knew that Goliath had won for now and Demona just didn't want to loose her face.

Goliath nodded.

"Three." he replied simply and then turned his eyes away from his ex-mate, back to Darlene. "We assume they will hatch in one month."

"This is wonderful." Darlene noted simply. Normally, she would have been more enthusiastic about the chance of seeing a gargoyle-egg hatching, but her mind was occupied otherwise.

She looked at her mother, who was studying every single egg as to search for any sign that the eggs were damaged when it hit her.

~ Eggs don't wander through the world ~ Darlene realized, looking to her mother. ~ Mother, you wouldn't.... ~

But indeed her mother would, so maybe one of these eggs was one more of her siblings.

Darlene swore she would find out, even if it was the last thing she would do.

"Grandma told me you are a mighty warrior." Jarred said eager, finding that the eggs weren't so interesting after all. "Have you had many fights?"

Goliath looked surprised to his rookery sister, who had seemingly discovered something interesting by the eggs again.

"Well, I don't think a warrior should define himself through the fights he has survived." Goliath replied. "But I have had some, even though there haven't been so many recently, thankfully. For this, it is a fortunate time for my clan."

"We could tell them of this back in the Great Hall." Angela suggested "I haven't told them of this yet."

Goliath nodded on this proposal of his daughter.

"If you would like to do so." he asked Darlene who agreed, while Demona simply neglected it.

So the group went back through the floors into the great hall where already some other gargoyles waited, who had heard of the arrival of the group.

"Hello." a gargress with caramel skin and golden hair greeted, while the gargoyle beside her, a male with white hair and dusky green skin, simply nodded.

"Ah, our new guests!" a large and corpulent gargoyle greeted, he had a slightly lighter color than Hudson and his hair was brown instead of white, but he seemed to be of the same generation, Darlene thought... Well, as far as someone could say by a clan, which had members from different times and places. "A pleasure to meet you," he greeted her warmly stopping shortly by noticing Jarred's five talons on his claws. "The lass had told us already a lot about you!"

"This is my brother Othello, his mate Desdemona and this is Agamemnon." Goliath explained. 

Darlene looked surprised to her mother by the similarities of the name.

"From the play." Demona explained calmly.

"It is a pleasure to meet you." Darlene greeted them. 

"For me too." Desdemona explained with a smile and directed to her sister. "Even though I would have liked to have met you earlier."

Demona just shrugged her shoulders and let this be the answer.

"Well," Darlene said, knowing her mother's wonderful sense for conversations. "We can catch up later. I'm anxious to hear stories of my mother's youth..." she suggested while looking on her mother, "since she has always been very silent about it."

"Why not," Desdemona noticed, ignoring the nearly pleading look of her sister. "There are many stories to be told, haven't they sister?"

"Maybe." Demona said in small voice, knowing very well that Darlene would love the stories of when she and her rookery siblings had been hatchlings. She hadn't been what someone would call the perfect child. 

"Ohhh, this is a sweet one." Agamemnon noticed, leaning forth and tickling Gem on her belly, on which the hatchling gulped happily and tried in return to get a part of the elder gargoyle's beard between her tiny claws.

"Ours will hatch in some weeks." he explained to Darlene. "So this little one will have some playmates soon... No gargoyle should grow up without anyone of his or her age to play with."

"Goliath told me of this already." Darlene replied, thinking about that she would have been happy if she would have had someone to play with back than. "But I think they might be too young for her."

  
Agamemnon, Desdemona and Othello looked confused on her, until Demona spoke to her daughter.

"Darlene, you have forgotten that hatchlings develop a bit faster than human babies." she explained. "The night after they have hatched out of the egg, they lie on their stomach and turn around and after a month... sometimes a bit more, they start to crawl."

"Cool." Jarred said, fascinated by the fact and looked at his little sister. "You see sis, you might soon make races with others."

"Great." Lana noted sarcastically. "Then it will become even more difficult to watch her."

"Gem is a little troublemaker." Darlene explained to the surprised crowd of gargoyles. "Even before her transformation, she liked to crawl to places where she had nothing to search, but since she has claws she is faster and there has always got to be someone to keep an eye on her so that she doesn't go 'exploring'."

Agamemnon gave a loud laughter, which made Darlene and her family look in surprise at him.

"Then she has much of your mother, lass. The lass had always had a hunger for adventure-trips." he explained, forgetting for one moment the strangeness of kinship through blood for his kind.

"Oh really?" Darlene asked with pleasure, she didn't need to turn around to know that her mother's eyes had become wide with fear, but this didn't interest her, as like her mother she had a sense for revenge.

"Aye," Agamemnon assured her and began.

He hadn't seen the pleading looks of his rookery daughter and even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to stop since the opportunity to tell a story was too good.

So he began to tell that she had always been a curious one, beginning with that she had been the first one of her rookery to hatch and the first to begin to explore what was outside. Then the 'tiny lass' had been the first one of her rookery who had begun to crawl and this, much to the fear of the rookery mothers, very intensively. 

Once she had somehow managed to escape from the rookery and crawled to investigate the castle until she had climbed up onto a parapet and had fallen from it down the cliffs. Luckily, her absence had been discovered in time so that one clan member, who had searched this site of the castle, had been able to catch her in the air.

The next shock the lass had given her clan was when she had been roughly 8 years, around 4 in human terms, when she had somehow managed to not just escape the rookery where she and her siblings would play, but even went out of the castle 'just to explore the forest' how she had said later. The lass had been missed even during the day and some of the clan had already feared the worst, especially since they had discovered the marks of a large bear in this area the next night. 

Luckily, a gargbeast had discovered her scent and lead the second of the clan, who had lead the group to a little cave in which the little hatchling, scared but healthy, had crept into the corner, sitting there with her legs close to her body and her wings covering her.

No need to say that she had got into much trouble because of this, but at least the shock seemed to have helped since after this, her thirst for new things had been subdued... a bit.

At the end of Agamemnon's story, to which he had added many other mischievous things of the red haired lass's youth, the redness of Demona's head rivaled Brooklyn's skin tone and Darlene thought that she absolutely loved the clan by now, especially after Agamemnon assured that there were even more stories to tell about her mother.

Lana had meanwhile looked on her grandmother with large eyes since she hadn't believed that her grandmother had ever been young at any time in her life, while Jarred under greatest efforts stopped himself from giggling.

Brooklyn had followed the elder's story with a grin spreading all over his beak until he thought his lips were splitting.

Luckily for Demona, who would have died by embarrassment if he had continued, Agamemnon's mate came to ask him to come with her, who he followed, unwilling.

"Well." Darlene, whose anger on her mother had somehow vanished, said. "That was interesting."

Her sister nodded.

"Yes, I should have asked the elders about my mother earlier." Angela explained.

Demona wanted to say something, but was still unable to say anything.

"Father, why don't we tell them about what the clan has achieved in the last six months?" Angela asked. "I didn't come to it when I was with them."

Goliath nodded.

"Indeed." he agreed. "You might sit down meanwhile."

The group took this offer happily and sat down by the tables, which were normally used for the clan to take their meals. And while Shade took place by her master's side, Gem grew restless in her mother's arms, finding it impudent to not be allowed to go in this interesting place by her own. 

Finally, Darlene gave in to her daughter's pleading and placed her on the floor, placing a foot-claw at the same time on her daughter's tail to restrict the infant's radius of action.

"You know that Demona has brought back the part of the clan we believed dead by the hands of the Vikings in 994 and the part, which formed her clan by 1057 and what she thought were dead by the hands of Duncan." Goliath explained. "After we melded the clans into one, the Manhattan clan, we decided to help other clans in the same way. The first we helped was a clan in the forest of Guatemala, where we restored a clan which had been extinguished except for the eggs and four adult members. We then helped the clan of Lothian and the ones of Wales, but I think my second can tell you more of this since he is the one who usually goes on such missions."

Brooklyn, surprised by this, nodded.

"Yeah," he began as he looked around, especially on Lana. "I'm kind of a 'Time cop' around here. Some of my brothers even call me the 'Time dancer'." he explained and spread his beak into a smile. "On every case, my job is anywhere and to anytime when a destroyed clan is located. I have to grab me the Phoenix Gate and jump there with a partner, usually Deborah, to locate the exact point when the clan has been killed, preferable without being seen and normally we use even illusions cast on us by Puck. Once we have done so, we grab the camera and take images of them to replace them with ordinary statues."

The little group had attracted some more gargoyles, mostly of Lana's age that were all attracted by curiosity and, mostly on the male side, by the look of this new pretty gargress who had come to them.

"But isn't this difficult?" Darlene asked and forgot for one moment her daughter's tail under her feet-claw, which gave the hatchling the chance to finally get free of it. "I mean, all the different languages all over the world and the different cultures, surely it is hard to learn such."

"We don't need such." Brooklyn explained, who was a bit disappointed that Lana didn't show any interest in his work like her mother was, sure Darlene was beautiful too and without a mate but she wasn't his age. "The Phoenix Gate somehow inhabits a spell, which allows the travelers to understand and speak every language spoken in the area."

Goliath nodded.

"Indeed, we have faced such magic already." the leader explained. "We traveled with the help of Avalon's magic around the world and could understand the different countries' languages as if it was our own, except special words for which we had no meanings in our language."

"And how many clans have you brought back?" Darlene asked this with growing interest, from all that her mother had told her, the gargoyle race had practically been extinguished except for a few clans all over the world. 

"Sixteen." Goliath explained. "Mostly, they are the Welsh-clans since we knew of their fate, but with the help of the London clan who has many exact notes about such, we have been able to locate and save three more clans in England."

"No more?" Demona asked surprised and Goliath shook his head.

"No, even when we know that there were once clans all around the world, we don't know when and where they lived or even if any of them didn't die in stone-sleep, but simply became fewer during the years and died out on the natural way so there is nothing we can do there. But," Goliath stopped shortly, looking directly to his sister. "Maybe you know any..."

Demona shook her head.

"In my letters were written all the clans I had been able to help." Demona explained. "I knew of no more clans to be rescued this way."

While Goliath looked on her, thinking that this didn't mean that she knew of no other clan, which didn't need to be rescued because they still existed, Desdemona noticed something.

"Sister, you're wrong." she explained to Demona, surprised. "I mean, we knew of the clan in Lothian, the survivors told us of them." 

Demona looked first surprised on her sister, but then she shrugged her shoulders.

"I forgot it." she replied simply. "It has been a long time since then."

Desdemona wanted to point out that she hadn't forgotten the three Scottish clans of whose survivors she had formed her clan from, but then let it be as it probably meant nothing.

"On every case, you should research it in the files of the Vatican." Demona explained, seemingly even so to distract them from this topic. "When I returned to Europe, I heard that many clans had been slaughtered during our time because of men from the church."

~ When you returned to Europe, sister? ~ Goliath thought. ~ Where have you been before and for how long? ~

But since he knew very well that he could wait until hell froze to get answers from his sister, Goliath kept silent.

Suddenly, Darlene noticed that someone was missing, who should be sitting at her feet-claws.

"WHERE IS GEM?!" she shrieked and stood up, looking around wildly.

  
In her mind, Darlene saw Gem climbing on the battlement of the highest tower already, imitating her grandmother and one step from the fall.

This was when she felt something at her leg and looking down she saw a complaining Gem, who was hanging securely from Shade's mouth. The gargbeast held the infant by her tiny wings, seemingly not intending to let her down as much as the hatchling wished it. 

Relieved, Darlene took her youngest daughter from the beast's mouth and stroked Shade's head.

"Good girl." she praised the beast, recognizing that maybe the problem of finding a baby-sitter for Gem was no more and sat her daughter back in her belt.

Jarred meanwhile looked around, a bit confused.

"Where are Connor and the others?" he asked Goliath, disturbing his thoughts.

"They have their training lessons with Deborah." the clan leader explained to the hatchling.

"Training lessons?" Jarred asked.

Desdemona nodded.

"Yes," she explained to, technically, her great-nephew. "The teacher teaches the clan's children the art to fight. Such it has been since the dawn of time in our clan."

Jarred's eyes grew wide.

"They learn how to become warriors?" he asked unbelieving.

Desdemona and Goliath exchanged some meaningful views and Darlene knew already to what this was leading to.

"Ultimately, yes." Desdemona explained. "But at the moment, they are practicing for their ascendance in about two years when they become adults in the eyes of the clan."

"Wow!" Jarred replied, looking to his mother. "Can I do this too? Please, please, please, please..."

Darlene could hardly suppress a grin at her son's begging. At least this would keep her son occupied.

"Well, if Goliath has nothing against this." she looked to the clan leader. 

"I will talk with the teacher about this." Goliath assured her. "But you have to know, such training is not easy, but true work. You will have to come here practically every night for one or more hours."

"Yippee!" Jarred exclaimed and now Darlene showed a complete grin, as her son had never been so enthusiastic when someone said there was work to do for him, but not just she, the whole group surrounding them seemed to smile about Jarred's eagerness... Except Demona, who hadn't even lifted her mouth and whose eyes just stared ahead, sunken in her own thoughts. 


	3. Chapter3

****

04.08.98; 00:25; the great hall:

The hall had filled with most of the clan, as they were very interested in their sister's newly discovered family, like in her herself. But most of the clan's attention was paid on Gem, since she was the only infant gargoyle in New York yet and such she was handed to other gargoyles very often who liked to cuddle the hatchling. 

Even Jarred had much fun by talking with the other hatchlings around his age having gathered around him and standing a bit aside the mass of the older gargoyles circled around Demona, Darlene with Gem and Lana.

Darlene enjoyed this very much, having found some gargoyles she could talk with. Most of the clan had questions about her life and how it had been to be human for so long... even when most of them didn't understand why she would have wished it.

Shade sat a bit away from the trouble, studying it bored and not being interested in Bronx's urgent requests to play with him.

Demona and Lana formed the other end of the scale. Lana felt so alone since she was besieged by practically all mate-less members of the Manhattan-clan who all told her of their glorious deeds in fighting Vikings and bandits or even the Pack... Lana wanted nothing more than to be back home, even when this just meant her grandmother's mansion.

Lana's grandmother was not really besieged since most of the clan gave their interest to Darlene, but her cold face proofed that she didn't wish to be here either, since parts of her former clans, mostly her siblings, wished to know of her life. By this way, Demona gave the word taciturn a new meaning.

"So, you seemingly have had some fun in the last few centuries, sister." her sister Arnadela asked Demona. She was a blue gargess with a beak, blue green hair and a bony knob at the end of her tail, wearing a white tunic and Demona remembered that she had once been very much after Goliath. 

"Occasionally, sister," Demona replied, holding the border of not sounding impolite, but asking herself at the same time if this sister of hers had listened to a piece of the history of her life Goliath knew and had securely told them by the Awakening. 

"I mean," Arnadela corrected herself, "you surely have met interesting gargoyles in your life.... males for once." 

"Occasionally," Demona replied. her face even and cool like her voice.

Arnadela exchanged looks with her other sisters around her.

"No mates out there besides the one we know?" Fuchsia asked her sister, not letting it go. "And did you have no other fun than you had seemingly with one of your clan?"

Demona studied her sister intensely; even she didn't know if this tone was hostile.

"Well..." Demona began and an image flashed through her mind, "it was occasionally like I said. I didn't meet many clans over the centuries and for decades no one, so there wasn't much possibility for such."

Agamemnon starred at his rookery-daughter.

"You haven't met some of our kind for decades?" he asked unbelieving. "Lass, with whom have you talked in all this time?"

Demona gave no answers, but her eyes, now centered on him, proofed the truth… with no one.

At once she saw pity not just in her elder's face, but also in that of her siblings and continuous others. She would sooner see that they hated her than that they felt pity for her.

"But this wasn't so bad." she lied to them, as if she was talking about the weather. "The problems began when I met clans."

This definitely did not help much, as she saw in the faces of the gargoyles surrounding her, now not just pity, but even so curiosity.

"Maybe I will talk about this another time." Demona explained which was the greatest lie since she didn't plan to be here long enough to do so. "But why don't you tell me how life is for you here now? Surely it had been hard to wake up in a world so different of what you... of what we knew back then?"

Her sisters gave each other looks, as they knew it was senseless to ask their sister about something when she didn't want to answer... she always had secrets.

Meanwhile Darlene, having Gem secure in her arms, talked with Deborah.

"Thanks again for allowing Jarred to take part in your training." she told the older gargess "It means very much to him."

Deborah nodded. 

"It is a pleasure for me, especially since your hatchling seems very eager." the older gargess explained "He can come every night, but he has to be here exactly at 10-0-clock, this is around the time when I usually start the lesson."

Darlene nodded, she would take care of that and since she couldn't let her son glide alone, she had the perfect reason for visiting the clan every night if she wanted to, if not then she could ask Lana or her mother to do so.

"You know your son could even visit our literature class." Goliath suggested "They have already learnt much and I think some of this literature might interest your son."

~ You don't know Jarred ~ Darlene thought, knowing that her son maybe couldn't even spell 'book'.

"Well I don't think this is a good idea. On top of the things that Jarred likes about being a gargoyle, is that he doesn't need to go to school." She said this with a smile, but just got honest confusion from Goliath. Seemingly this gargoyle had no idea of how human children hated school. 

"Besides, mom already teaches him magic in the week and I don't want it to become too much." she added.

What Darlene had thought was a minor matter, brought her the absolute silence and the attention of the eyes of all gargoyles surrounding her.

"Ähem, did I say anything wrong?" Darlene asked, looking around.

Deborah was the first who got back her voice.

"You let **_her_** teach him **_magic_**?" she asked unbelieving.

"Well, yes." Darlene admitted. "Mother trained me in this when I was young, so I don't see a reason why Jarred shouldn't learn it too."

Deborah's eyes stayed wide while she looked on the gargess speechless. 

"The clan is a bit careful by magic." Angela helped out.

Darlene nodded, as she could understand this, considering that a part of them had been forced to sleep 1000 years through this.

"I understand, but there is nothing bad by being able to do magic." Darlene explained. "Magic is just a weapon, mother has taught me." 

Deborah was going to say that it was definitely not so, especially when Jarred learned magic from Demona, but bit her lip since she knew it would lead to nothing.

It followed an ugly silence in which no one knew what to say.

"What are you doing with your time since you are back here?" One of the generation above Goliath's asked finally if just to end the silence.

"Well," Darlene began, "I think first I will spend time exploring the city. Besides this building, there are sure a lot changes here."

"Yes, but I warn you to be careful." Goliath explained. "The Quarrymen have been disbanded, but there are still people who think like them and they're are reporters who are seemingly hungry for pictures of members of our race."

"I could accompany you." Therisities offered Darlene and on her surprised look he added, a bit stumbling. "I... I mean I could show you the area and could show you the best places to hide if one quarryman, the pack or any mad clone comes up." 

A bit startled by his offer and surprised when she heard the good-hearted laughter of some of the gargoyles surrounding her, Darlene just looked on him until she finally nodded with a warm smile. 

"I would like this very much." she explained warmly, causing Thersities's skin-tone to change from grey to light red. 

"Seemingly our brother has finally found a female who is interested in his best ability." One gargoyle, one who looked like Brooklyn but with a beard, whispered to another by slightly elbowing his stomach.

"Yes." replied the other, who was called Javin, grinning. "Who would have believed it?"

Darlene noticed these whispers in wonder and made a mental note to ask her mother about this special brother with the twisted horns, of hers. But her thoughts were stopped when she noticed that there, leaning on the wall of the hall, actually stood the gargoyle that she had been looking for the whole evening.

This special gargoyle was rather large, had a brown-grey skin, white hair, a beak and, how Darlene had lately discovered, was the father of her half-brother... Some when she would kill her mother.

He stood beside another gargoyle she had never seen before, a grey one who was hairless with two horns growing out of the sides of his head and most obvious was an iron breastplate and they were both talking, most likely about her mother, as they were both looking at her.

Darlene turned to Angela, who had just talked to her.

"Sorry, can you repeat that?" Darlene asked her, since she hadn't listened.

"I said that I am happy that we haven't had any greater trouble in the last month." Angela explained, asking herself what might distract both her mother and her sister so. "Even the Pack seems to have disappeared."

Darlene nodded, but without really having understood the meaning of these words, since she saw how the gargoyle she had searched for just in this moment left through one of the floors. This was the moment when Darlene made her decision.

"Sorry, but where is the WC?" she asked, looking rather a bit uneasy, hoping that they would understand this simply, as embarrassment over the question than as sign for the fact that she wanted to go after the nameless gargoyle.

"Well there are many WCs in the castle, but the closest is there." Angela explained, showing right into the direction Darlene had prayed for. "I could show you." 

"No thanks." Darlene denied her sister's offer politely. "I always had a good sense for finding rooms, but could you hold Gem?" 

Angela nodded and took over the hatchling, who seemed to have no trouble of being held by her aunt, while Darlene ran rather than walked over the floor and when she had reached it, she went over to run on all fours.

"Seemingly she has a pressing urge." Javin noticed smiling.

"Well I saw that she and her children just ate something when I came." Angela defended her and fussed Gem. By doing so she noticed, or rather smelled something. "And seemingly she is not the only one who has eaten well."

This was the moment when the others who surrounded the hatchling in Angela's arms, noticed the smell, too.

  
"Urgh." Javin commented, making a face of disgust while studying Gem. "She has definitely eaten well."

"Well we will smell this soon every night when our own hatch." Hudson replied, smiling a knowing smile in union with his mate.

"Oh joy." Thersities commented desperately. He knew who had to change them.

"Well I think I should change her before Darlene comes back." Angela explained, tickling Gem on her belly. "This would be better?"

The hatchling gulped which Angela took as a yes and took her away. Luckily they had prepared for their hatchings already by buying masses of diapers alike with other equipment, so that there would be no lack of this when needed.

"The lass seems to be training for her own rookery." Hudson noticed.

"Funny, considering that the lass and her rookery kin should have been the next to hatch." an elder of the rookery above Hudson's noted beside him. "Fate really has played pranks to us."

"I wouldn't call it fate." Deborah noticed icily, looking at Demona who stood amongst the gargoyles surrounding her, trying not to look as bad as she felt herself.

****

04.08.98; 00:42; a floor near the great hall:

Darlene had just passed the corner and feared already that she had lost the gargoyle she wanted to speak to, in the labyrinth of floors, when she saw him directly in front of her.

"Hey...." she hesitated shortly, reminiscing what her mother had taught her how to speak to others of their kind. "…friend." 

The gargoyle of Demona's former clan turned around to her, looking surprised.

"Ähhh, yes?" he replied. 

'How often have you slept with my mother?' was the first thing she wanted to ask him, but then she realized that this might be a bit too direct.

"I just wanted to ask you something about my mother...." Darlene began, looking around for other gargoyles on the floors, but there were none. "Your former leader."

"What?" the gargoyle asked; still perplexed.

"Well I know that you both have a son, Connor, my half-brother," Darlene began, "and I wanted to know if you have any further children... like maybe one of the eggs in the rookery." 

The gargoyle looked even more perplexed on the strange, but magnificent looking gargess, who reminded him so greatly of his former leader.

"Well the lad is my rookery son like hers and it isn't our way to....." he began, but was stopped by Darlene's snarl. 

"**LISTEN!**" she snarled with blood-red eyes, as silent and as threatening as possible while grabbing his clothes. "I'm **not** interested in this old excuse! Have you and my mother conceived an egg for this rookery or not?!"

The gargoyle tried unsuccessfully to move a bit backward, having got the absolute proof that this was his former leader's flesh and blood.

"No!" he replied, speaking the absolute truth. "We have not. It was just the one breeder's moon."

Darlene felt herself relaxing, until she felt a small rumble in her stomach and took her claws from his loincloth.

"I'm sorry." she apologized for her outburst. "But I already have trouble with my mother about this and...." she sighed. "It got through to me. You won't tell her about this?"

The gargoyle looked on the strange gargess carefully. She looked calm now, but he knew now of her temper and **he** definitely wouldn't be the one who would try to oppose her, especially since this was something between her and her 'mother'.

"No, I won't." he assured her. "Is this all or are there any more questions?"

Darlene shook her head and so released him. She wanted to apologize to him one more time, but he had already turned around and obviously fled. 

"Mother," she spoke depressed to an imaginary Demona, "if there have ever been any doubts about me being your daughter, then there are no more."

Sighing, she turned around to walk slowly back into the great hall when she had the feeling in her stomach again.

~ Uff ~ she thought, stroking her stomach, ~apparently I really have to go to the WC. ~

Darlene swore herself not to eat so much of her mother's 'snacks' anymore.

****

04.08.98; 01:03; a floor near the great hall:

Darlene went out of the WC, a bit relieved but not much since she still felt something in her stomach, which she couldn't quite define.

~ I have to ask mother after the recipe ~ Darlene thought. ~ Otherwise Jarred and Lana haven't complained yet and Gem.... ~

Her thoughts were stopped by a happy cooing very near by her and when Darlene looked around she noticed Angela with Gem in her arms standing behind her.

"I have changed her." Angela explained on the surprised look of her older... younger... of her sister. "Seemingly you weren't the only one who ate well."

Darlene nodded while taking Gem from her half-sister.

"Yes." she explained, ordering herself to remember that she would have to cook if her sister or any one of the clan would ever come to eat at her mother's mansion... She didn't want to let her mother poison her new-found family. "Thank you, sister."

"No need." Angela replied "I like to train for my own someday." 

Darlene exposed a smile.

"Well, you will be able to care for some in about a month." she noted. "I hope that I will be able to see them hatch. I mean, them being from mother's clan means that we share something with them."

"Yes," Angela agreed nodding, "but despite this, I think the happiest moments of all will be when I have my own hatchlings."

"For me it was." Darlene explained, reminiscing with an absent smile. "To hold Lana in my arms for the first time... then Jarred and finally Gem..." 

She looked on her youngest daughter in her arms and her smile faded until there was nothing then a look of sadness.

"Sister?" Angela asked her softly, touching her sister's shoulder. 

Darlene looked up, brought back to the present. 

  
"Sorry." she explained sighing. "It's just that me and Paul wished we could have had even more children and..." 

A tear shivered in her eyes, but she wished it away, banning these thoughts, especially since she noticed that Gem grew restless, noticing her mother's pain.

"It is okay." Angela said sympathetically. "I mean gargoyles never have more than three own children since twins are very rare. Even our mother has only us three."

Darlene sighed.

"Maybe," she explained with a half-smile "but I can't get enough of them."

She looked in her sister's understanding eyes and shook her head.

  
"Otherwise I have just gained a complete clan as family, so I don't think I should complain." Darlene explained with a half-smile "And you will see one day, you will have children by yourself."

Angela nodded, knowing that her sister wanted to end the topic of Paul.

"Yes, but first in twenty years." she reminded her. "I already thought about asking Puck to help me, but then there was the problem that a child of mine would have no one to play with here and after mother brought all the clan back..." Angela scraped on the ground with her feet-claws. "Well I don't think the mass of them would react well on such or even understand why I want such. For them, a hatchling belongs to the whole clan."

Darlene looked to her sister understanding.

"I can't help you with the clan sister, but as a sole-child, I knew it is sometimes hard to grow up alone." she explained and on the sympathizing look of her sister, she added fast. "Oh I mean mum was a great mother and she gave me everything...." ~ Yeah ~ a cynical voice in her mind replied ~ this was the reason you ran away ~ "Everything she _could_ give me, but sometimes I felt lonely and wondered how it would be to have siblings, or just friends." 

"And I grew up with many rookery-siblings." Angela explained. "Thirty-one to be exact and the Princess, the Magus and Tom were great rookery parents, but I always asked myself who my true parents were and how it would be to have them around."

Darlene and Angela looked on each other, both thinking the same of being happy to have found someone with whom they could speak about such things.

"Well then we both finally have what we wanted." Darlene noticed smiling, tickling Gem's stomach and leading the hatchling to giggle. "Come, let us go to the clan and see how mum is."

Angela nodded, now smiling, too, and followed her sister down the floor.

****

04.08.98; 01:14; the great hall:

"... Oh yes and then I threw this Viking against the wall and disarmed the other with a kick of my tail."

This constant story of his heroic deeds came from a young warrior of Lana's age with a crested head on which grew dark-fair hair, who demonstrated this with a gesture of his tail, which lashed wildly in the air.

~ God, ~ Lana thought stressed, ~ am I the only female gargoyle here? ~

Obviously not, since she noticed the growing group of females, standing away from her, and looking particularly jealous and even angry on her. Somehow Lana knew that while she had gained a lot of *friends* amongst the male gargoyles of her age, now her chances to find female friends were miserable.

"Hey, this is nothing against what I fought already against." Brooklyn intervened, his chest swelled due in pride and to demonstrate his muscles. "There was an army of steel-clan-robots hunting us, masses of muggers who were after their prey, Dem...." he bit his lip, he had nearly added Demona, but somehow he doubted that fighting against her grandmother would be a plus for Lana. "Immortal warriors, clones, mutated..."

Brooklyn was so busy in eagerly counting his deeds that he, like the gargoyles surrounding him, didn't notice the small group of gargoyles looking, frowning at him in growing resentment while talking to each other, sometimes shaking their heads, everyone except Goliath who just talked with his mentor and looked at them.

Meanwhile, Demona was busy to prevent the gargoyles around her to ask further questions she didn't want to answer and so had no eye left for her granddaughter's misery. But she had indeed one eye for the group of gargoyles of all age up from Brooklyn's generation, which she had personally trained to warriors to the oldest clan-members... Not one of them looked friendly on her.

"Lately, many big media empires have even asked us if we would play a role in their shows..." Desdemona noted "By the dragon, Goliath told me that Schwarz even wanted to produce dolls and action figures of us."

  
"I heard of this." Demona replied. "Typical of humans, trying to make money out of everything, they have no senses of the honor of other races."

Before her sister could reply something of this statement, which proofed that Demona still wasn't the most tolerant gargoyle in the world, someone else came between them who, how Demona had noticed, came from the group looking on her.

"I didn't think that you would mind to produce such things by yourself, Demona." This voice came from one older gargoyle, two generations above Demona's and who had served as her drill-master of her rookery once. "Neither do I think you have any honor or care for that of our race."

Demona's eyes stayed cool, uncaring, but deep down she felt something in her froze, which wasn't dramatically since it hadn't truly melted any time this night or the nights before.

"And what makes you think this?" she asked icily.

Both starred at each other and Demona's keen ears, now like the rest of her body brought on war-mode, sensed the growing circle of silence, growing around her since parts of the clan noticed the tension centered on them both.

"The fact that you are a traitor, who can't even spell the words honor and decency." the older female explained and Demona could see a growing spark of red in her eyes. "Someone who would sooner kill us all than to admit this?!"

There was a voice in her mind, a voice which spoke sadly and as soft as Demona believed she had never sounded.

~ She is right ~ this voice nearly cried, as she remembered how this elder once had caught her in the air when she had lost the control through a sudden updraft, or how she had told her and her rookery-siblings stories of her fights. ~ I should beg for her mercy to her feet since there can't be forgiveness. ~

But there was even so another voice, a voice full of anger and outrage.

~ How dare this old wretch? ~ it said. ~ After all I went through to bring them back.... I am the only reason that she breathes! She should lie at my feet and thank me!!! ~ 

This voice, which was more dominant than the first, let her mind search for all the weaknesses she knew of this gargoyle.

~ Well she is slow and weak with her left... ~ the voice thought. ~ I could surprise her and grab her neck so fast that she won't even know what's happening and then one fast push... ~

Demona stopped both voices in her head and simply held her look in the older gargoyle's grey angry eyes.

"I should have warned you, yes." she explained, her voice somewhere below zero.

  
The older gargess looked in Demona's eyes and alone these showed that she wasn't satisfied with the answer, but before she could answer on this, Agamemnon intervened.

"Lass, I don't think such things should be talked here." he tried. "The leader has made his decision in this matter and the hatchlings... "

"I'm not interested in such," the gargess snarled, now with blood red eyes. "She has... "

"In what are you not interested?" a deep and strong voice demanded from behind her back.

The elder turned around to see her leader standing behind her, staring hard on her.

"We were just discussing something." Desdemona intervened before the elder could say anything more. "But this discussion is over now."

Desdemona's voice was uncommonly hard and the elder noticed that, with the leader near her, this maybe wasn't the best time to contradict, especially since now that some of the young males, caught by Lana's beauty, alike with two of the hatchlings gathered around Jarred, were starting to look at them.

"Maybe," she directed to the leader and then turned back to Demona, "but it will be continued by other occasions."

"I won't stop you." Demona replied icily, but in her voice was more than a bit of challenge, showing that she wouldn't dodge before a confrontation.

The elder held her glare on the young one, whose eyes didn't flinch and then, under the eyes of half of the gathered clan, she turned around to go back to her group.

Demona's icy green eyes followed the older gargoyle until the end and then turned her look back to the ones surrounding her, who was all looking around in an awkward silent. Goliath made the first move by turning around and looking on the gargoyles still staring on this scene. His face gave them the hint that it was better to turn back to their former matters and when all had done so, Goliath turned his attention back to the circle before him and the special gargoyle there.

"Please try to prevent such in the future." Goliath said, quietly enough that only the inner circle of the surroundings understood him and as calm as possible, he knew Demona wouldn't follow on his 'orders'.

"I didn't begin it." Demona replied and her voice dropped even some degrees more, maybe since one voice in the back of her head reminded her that she had started it indeed.

Goliath shook his head slightly.

~ I thought she understood ~ he thought, a bit disappointed.

"It doesn't matter who started it." Goliath said. "I can't condone fighting here now."

~ You could never condone any fighting? ~ Demona asked him cynically in her mind, remembering the night before the massacre when he had sent the trio into the rookery, giving her the same reasons with practically the same words, ~ and you will never change. ~

"I didn't provoke this 'discussion,' Goliath," she explained, her eyes studying her ex-mate's eyes, "but neither will I shrink back from them."

Goliath held the look, but he knew that he wouldn't achieve more without a struggle and he didn't need this now. With a nod, he turned around, going back to the group, including Deborah and Hudson, while Demona held her eyes on his back.

"Lass, you should do what the leader says." Agamemnon warned his rookery daughter. "At the moment it is a tensed situation here and you shouldn't make it worse."

"He isn't my leader." Demona replied and her voice was near a snarl while her eyes grew slightly red.

Agamemnon looked on his rookery daughter in a way that Demona nearly believed she had hurt him and more weird was that a part of her heart felt sorry for that.

"Maybe not, sister," Desdemona intervened, "but our and his authority is... questioned by some."

Demona understood.

"Because of him?" she asked, looking on a muscular black skinned gargoyle with three horns on his hairless head, standing beside her crested brother and who looked on her in return.

Desdemona nodded.

"Mainly, yes," Arnadela replied. "But you should really be more cautious here anyway."

"Like ever," Demona explained icily and the gargoyles surrounding her, looked on each other with unsure eyes.

"Mom."

Demona turned around by the sound of this voice, seeing her biologically oldest daughter with Gem in her arms standing besides her chronologically oldest daughter. 

"Yes?" she asked, as calm as she could by what had happened before.

"Well," Darlene began unsure, sensing that it was definitely more silent than when she had first left, "is something wrong?" 

"Just a discussion," Demona replied coolly, with crossed arms to make her point.

Darlene and Angela looked on each other, then on the gargoyles around them and they decided to let it be... for now.

Meanwhile, Jarred, sitting on a couch, was caught in an ongoing talk with the hatchlings surrounding him.

"Do you know 'Action man'?" Jarred asked the surrounding group.

"Yeah, the show is cool!" Duncan replied. "But our elders don't allow us to watch TV for anymore than one hour a night."

  
"Mhhm," Connor assured. "They say it will poison our minds."

"My mom says so too." Jarred noticed depressed. "Especially since in the night there are no good shows. I'm lucky that grandma has a TV-recorder."

"Hey, what do you think about going out and gliding a bit around the castle?" one of the male hatchlings asked.

The agreeing murmurs of Jarred and the others showed that the hatchlings definitely agreed on this and so the group went off into the courtyard... until they were stopped by Arnadela, Desdemona and Othello when they passed the group around Demona.

"Hey, you group of imps, where are you going?" she asked good-heartily, studying them and thinking that the new one fitted very well with them.

"Out gliding," Connor explained, "for just a bit around the castle."

"You know that the leader has ordered that you can fly outside the castle only when an elder is beside you?" Desdemona said, on which some of the hatchlings lowered their heads. 

"Well you could come with us elder," Eve suggested, "Pleaaaasse!"

Desdemona smiled when she looked into her large blue eyes and then turned around to look to her mate, now standing behind her.

"Well, why not?" Othello gave into the hatchling's pleading and joined his mate, leading them outside.

"Your lad fits well to them." Aerie noticed, beside Darlene. 

She was Demona's rookery sister too, and had a human face with long dark blue hair that had a single streak of white stretching through the middle. Her skin was cloud blue and she wore a tunic mild violet in color, while her tail ended in a turf of hair. 

"Yes," Darlene agreed smiling. "It has been some time since he had a possibility to be with children... hatchlings, of his own age. I'm happy that he has found friends so fast." she hesitated shortly. "Is there any special reason for why they are watched when they play?" 

"No," Arnadela explained. "We just want to be sure that the hatchlings don't glide too far away and..." she stopped shortly. "We want to be sure."

Darlene nodded, understanding completely what this gargoyle meant, considering all the clan had been through in the last years.

"Unfortunately this means they can just glide around the castle or play in it." Agamemnon's mate noticed. "Xanatos has already offered to take the hatchlings, with helicopters, to an estate he has outside of New York in the woods, so that they can play there unmolested and I think the clan will agree to this soon."

"Aye," Agamemnon agreed, coming up to them. "It hurts the poor lads and lassies in their wings to not be allowed to glide further away from the castle. When I was young we sometimes glided around the whole night... "

Soon he began telling of his sheer endless lair of stories of his youth and already after five minutes of the monotone monologue, Darlene noticed how even the hyperactive infant in her arms fell slowly asleep.

~ By the dragon, ~ Darlene thought, ~ if he taught mum and her siblings. I wonder how they learned the half of what they needed before they fell asleep? ~

Feeling that she had become inattentive too, she looked around, trying to find her oldest daughter and finally discovered her amongst a larger group of gargoyles of her age, seemingly eager to impress her. By looking in Lana's face, Darlene noticed that her daughter was near screaming.

"Sorry, but I have to look after Lana." she told Agamemnon, which didn't stop the elder in his speech.

"...and then I made a looping and landed on his back and..." Brooklyn explained, emphasizing this by letting his claw duplicate the maneuver.

"Sorry, guys." Darlene said, going to her daughter's side. "But Agamemnon is just telling a story and I want my daughter to hear it." 

Lana's face lit up and she had to suppress a sigh of salvation when she rushed to her mother's side, while her fans looked rather sad after her.

"Maybe we could talk again next time?" the one with the crested head asked, but Lana just gave a half-smile and shrugged her shoulders, showing that it wasn't her who determined that.

"Unless," Darlene told her daughter, while they had passed half of the way to the group, surrounding Demona, "unless of course you are more interested to listen the stories of those guys than the stories of a grandfather."

"No, no, no!" Lana assured in absolute panic. "I totally love old stories!"

Darlene smiled, her daughter had never wanted her to tell any stories when she had been young, but Lana would maybe even want this sooner than, or to spend a night training with her grandmother, than to stay one second longer around those eager males.

".... and then we soared down into this valley and..." Agamemnon continued in his monotone voice, making the ones around him fall slowly asleep.

"Oh, you old bag of air!" his mate stopped him. "You are driving the others asleep!"

"Mhphf..." Agamemnon grumbled. "You overestimate."

"Oh?" his mate asked with a half smile. "Look at our daughter, she seemingly is already asleep."

She pointed on Demona and so showed the others that this one was simply staring ahead, being anywhere but not in the present.

"Mother?" Angela asked Demona, touching her arm which brought the immortal back in the present.

The immortal looked surprised on her daughter.

"Yes?"

Angela sighed. 

"Nothing, mother." she explained, but asked herself at the same time what occupied her mother's thoughts the whole night.

"I see you have made some friends amongst our young warriors, lass." Agamemnon's mate noticed with a smile, looking to Lana.

"Well they definitely want to have more than just friendship with me." Lana complained. "Have you really so few females?"

Darlene looked on her daughter by this embarrassing statement, but before she could rebuke her, the elder female chuckled, showing that she didn't take it as an offence.

"Oh no, the genders are nearly equal in this rookery, especially since there have been just a few new ones from the new part of the clan." She explained. "But you are new and for males who for their whole lives have just seen their rookery sisters, you are exciting... especially dressed like this."

The old gargess pointed on Lana's jeans, which reached to her knee-spikes and the T-shirt, which were quite different to the tunics the clan-members wore. 

"Hey, tunics have been out of fashion for a thousand years." Lana replied, shrugging her shoulders, ignoring her mother and her grandmother who both were convinced of something other.

"Don't worry." Arnadela said. "The clan and at least the leader will hold the pack of hot-blooded admirers back when they carry it too far and if this doesn't help, you might ask my caramel-skinned sister what to do. Correct, sister?" 

Demona, who had somehow managed to stay in the present this time, nodded.

"Yes, our sister has some experience in such things." she explained and these memories led to something that some would call a smile.

The other gargoyles surrounding them grinned too and somehow Darlene, like Angela, guessed that there were many more stories to be told about the clan than could be in one night.

****

04.08.98; 05:21; the battlement of Wyvern:

Darlene and her family, including Shade, had climbed on the battlements and now were going to say goodbye to their hostess, namely Goliath and Angela who accompanied them until there.

"This was great." Darlene noted. "I hope we will repeat this soon."

"Well, if there's no one who speaks against it." Angela said. "Considering that we live in the same city now." 

"Well, at least someone has to accompany Jarred to his training hours." Darlene said.

"Hey, I can glide this little way alone!" her son protested.

"In ten years, perhaps." Darlene replied, laying a claw on her son's shoulder and so stopping any further protest.

"In any case, you are welcome to visit us at any time," Goliath explained and added with a look to his ex-mate, "all of you."

~ Why do I think you lied for the first time of your life? ~ Demona thought cynically, mainly since his speech prolonged the time she needed to be here, since after she had told the hatchlings two stories she had heard during her journeys, her wish to go had enlarged rapidly.

"We are very happy about this," Darlene replied honestly, "and we will surely visit you soon." 

Lana stared on her mother, asking herself whom she meant with 'we'.

"Come." Demona told Darlene and her grandchildren. "The winds are favorable now."

Darlene nodded and hugged her half-sister one last time, on which Angela grinned and tickled Gem in her sister's arms. 

"Goodbye." she said to both gargoyles when she climbed on the battlements, where the rest of them, including her mother with Shade in her arms, had already taken place.

Demona gave Angela a last friendly nod and then jumped into the air, falling down one moment through Shade's additional weight, just to draft up afterwards as fast as she had fallen before. Her family followed and soon they were just some small points with Angela and her father looking after them.

"What do you think of them?" Angela asked.

"Darlene seems like a nice person and a good mother." Goliath replied calmly. "And she has good children.... They are clan."

Angela looked up on her father.

"Every one of them?" she asked. 

  
Goliath thought about it a second, he knew of whom his daughter spoke of.

"This is her decision, Angela." he explained and laid his right claw on his daughter's shoulder. "But I don't refuse her."

Angela nodded, enjoying the feeling of her father's touch, not knowing when he had allowed himself such a gesture last time.

"Let us go in again." the leader of the Manhattan clan suggested and his daughter nodded, going with him with a smile, since she thought that finally everything was going to turn out well.

****

To be continued... 


End file.
